Monthly Archives: March 2013

We’ll have some fun stuff on how our Puzzle Strike tournament came out soon, but first I want to welcome MP’s first official sponsor, the drawing, cosplaying, figure-loving, tea sipping, internet bon vivant Bunnychan! Like yours truly, she’s all over the tubes. She has her UTAU/Figure blog Bunny Chai, but when she’s not working on that, she showcases her whimsical art on the usual sites and will even draw for you as long you ask nicely.

Bunny has donated a metric ton of prizes for our game shows, and will also help the site out with some other projects, so you’re going to run into Bunnychan’s work whether you want to or not, but you should totally want to. After all, Gary would be sad if you don’t support her.

A lot of what made me want to start MelloPanther and what will likely continue to drive me is that the programs and events that I do are things that I want to see. One thing I’d like to see more attention paid to is RPG rooms. Your standard convention will tend to have a board game room, sometimes combined with the CCG room, and some might have pick-up games of various RPG’s, particular Pathfinder and D&D. However, while one-shots can be fun (and I’ve been in some hilarious one-shots) one of the appeals of tabletop gaming is getting together and having an epic campaign, spinning the tale of your heroes’ great adventures. Problem is, if your convention is three days long, how can you fit in a campaign, especially with all the other things that can happen at a convention?

I think I’ve found an answer to that, and it comes from video gaming: a persistent world. In basic terms, this is a game space that resembles real life in that you can make changes to the game world, and those changes are permanent, and like the real world, the game world can, and most likely will, change when you’re not around and getting involved. I think a persistent RPG world would be a great setting for a short tabletop campaign. A well-crafted setting can reward players for playing from the 1st session, but won’t punish those who want just a quick challenge before their next activity. There are several ways you can pull off a persistent world like this in an RPG, and I’d love to demonstrate it a convention. I figure I could fit in 4-6 sessions in most 3-day shows. Why not give me a shot?